In an imperious essay from 1920, tellingly entitled Purism, the architect Le Corbusier and his colleague wrote: “In a true and durable plastic work, it is form which comes first, and everything else should be subordinated to it. Disegno represented purity and intellect colore the vulgar and effeminate. In art, the tussle over the respective merits of disegno (drawing) versus colore (colour) raged on through the Renaissance and, although somewhat muted, into the present day. The pious Henry Ford refused for many years to bow to consumer demand and produce cars in any colour other than black. Protestants, for example, once expressed their intellectual simplicity, severity and humility in a palette dominated by black and white bright colours like red, orange, yellow and blue were removed both from the walls of churches and their wardrobes. But arguments like these are very old indeed.
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